OAK HILL, W.Va. — West Virginia American Water is welcoming its new Operations Center in Oak Hill.

American Water representatives were joined by The Fayette County Chamber of Commerce along with community and business leaders Thursday for a ribbon cutting ceremony and an open house at their new operations center.

WVAW External Affairs Manager Bradley Harris said they made the move to the new facility along Industrial Drive in Oak Hill about a month ago after outgrowing the previous facility. He said they feel good about making the transition.

“We found a great spot over here in the Industrial park with lots of space for all of our equipment to fit in the garage and lots of room for expansion, so it’s a really great move for our Oak Hill and Fayette County-based operations team members,” said Harris.

Harris said the facility is the hub for American Water’s commercial and distribution operation where service orders will be carried through, as well as if there are any water main breaks or leaks, team members will be dispatched out of the facility across the Fayette County service area to attend to them.

He said in addition to providing employees with more space, the new center will also help accommodate the continued growth going on throughout the area, being centrally-located and well within reach of many major area features.

“We do serve the new New River Gorge National Park area and obviously Fayette County is growing and seeing more visitors and folks are expanding, so it just allows our operations team to continue to meet that growth and continue to help our customers stay in service and provide them with the adequate service that we provide,” he said.

The operations center serves around 14,000 American Water customers throughout the Fayette County region.

Harris said with all of the extra room the center is providing its workers, they are all happy to be there and loving the new facility.

“They all have room and space to kind of spread out, and it’s a really modern facility, we modernized the facility that we took over here at the Industrial park, so we’re really excited, everybody is happy to have the extra space, and the garage space has expanded from the previous location also,” said Harris.

The center is now located at 550 Industrial Drive, Oak Hill.